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When you fly does turbulence scare you?

Mai72

Mai72

Lifer
I've flown cross country and I've flown around the world. No matter how many times I fly turbulence always freaks me out!

I flew home from Thailand yesterday. Bangkok to Doha was 7 hours. Not a bad flight. A little bumpy, but I was seated near the wing. More stability. I then got on my last leg of the flight. Doha to Philadelphia which was 12.5 hours. I was seated at the back of the plane. You don't want to be at the back if you're scared of turbulence. About 7 hours in it got really bumpy. I took one Tylenol PM during my first flight, and one during the last flight. I also drank 2 glasses of wine. Nothing. I couldn't fall asleep. Hell, I didn't even watch a movie. I had the moving map on the whole flight. For over 12 hours I watched our flight take off from Doha and land at Philadelphia. I figured if we were going down I would know if I should get my life vest. Probably looked like a freak to the young girl seated next to me. I will never understand how people are able to watch movies and sleep during turbulence.

I read books on flying. I know you're 10,000 more time likely to die driving your automobile than you are from flying. I also know that turbulence has never brought down a commercial plane. I still need to get over my fear.
 
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It's uncomfortable when the plane drops suddenly. Gives that weird feeling in your stomach. Never had turbulence bad enough to make me think the plane could crash.
 
AMCRambler said:
It's uncomfortable when the plane drops suddenly. Gives that weird feeling in your stomach. Never had turbulence bad enough to make me think the plane could crash.
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From what I've read planes don't fall from the sky. Air pockets are also a myth. Wind is always moving.

Now, there is unexpected clear turbulence. The pilot doesn't see it and it hits the plane with a lot of force. That would be extreme turbulence.

That is someone's coffee on the ceiling.

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I have zero fear of flying because I understand how planes operate and what's happening with turbulence occurs. It's certainly uncomfortable when you're eating or trying to take a nap. Now if you're sitting next to me and I start freaking out, that's a good time to start panicking.

The only form of turbulence that I know of that will bring down a plane are microbursts. Strong downward bursts of air produced in thunderstorms. They appear suddenly, push a plane down violently, then it gets caught in the vortex at ground level. Like getting punched by the fist of god. Takes a very good pilot to be able to ride them out. Most accidents happen during landing. However, we've gotten much better at detecting these. After the crash of Delta Airlines Flight 191 back in 1994, NASA rigorously studied the phenomenon and build better weather radars to detect it. Since then the only commercial flight to have crashed in North America was one of the Goodyear blimps in 2005. Nobody was injured.
 
mmntech said:
I have zero fear of flying because I understand how planes operate and what's happening with turbulence occurs. It's certainly uncomfortable when you're eating or trying to take a nap. Now if you're sitting next to me and I start freaking out, that's a good time to start panicking.

The only form of turbulence that I know of that will bring down a plane are microbursts. Strong downward bursts of air produced in thunderstorms. They appear suddenly, push a plane down violently, then it gets caught in the vortex at ground level. Like getting punched by the fist of god. Takes a very good pilot to be able to ride them out. Most accidents happen during landing. However, we've gotten much better at detecting these. After the crash of Delta Airlines Flight 191 back in 1994, NASA rigorously studied the phenomenon and build better weather radars to detect it. Since then the only commercial flight to have crashed in North America was one of the Goodyear blimps in 2005. Nobody was injured.
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Microbursts are rare, right?

Delta Flight 191.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_191
 
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mmntech said:
I have zero fear of flying because I understand how planes operate and what's happening with turbulence occurs. It's certainly uncomfortable when you're eating or trying to take a nap. Now if you're sitting next to me and I start freaking out, that's a good time to start panicking.

The only form of turbulence that I know of that will bring down a plane are microbursts. Strong downward bursts of air produced in thunderstorms. They appear suddenly, push a plane down violently, then it gets caught in the vortex at ground level. Like getting punched by the fist of god. Takes a very good pilot to be able to ride them out. Most accidents happen during landing. However, we've gotten much better at detecting these. After the crash of Delta Airlines Flight 191 back in 1994, NASA rigorously studied the phenomenon and build better weather radars to detect it. Since then the only commercial flight to have crashed in North America was one of the Goodyear blimps in 2005. Nobody was injured.
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That happened in '85 and yea, it was a microburst that created a severe down-draft that essentially removes the ability of the wings to create lift. All planes now have Doppler radar on board to warn pilots of a microburst ahead of them. I was out golfing one day when a storm approached, while heading for cover (a bathroom) a microburst happened, the air temp dropped by 20-30 degrees in seconds and my hat blew off and slammed directly onto the ground in front of me and did not move from there until I picked it up, it was REALLY freaky!
 
Depends on severity. My wife and I fly to Europe a few times a year. Felt lots of turbulence; quick drops, shaking, stuff getting jostled around on the plane etc. My wife hates it and I would tease her about it all the time.

When we were coming home from Spain last year we hit the motherload of turbulence. It started with a big jerk and then a prolonged and intense drop, felt like we were going head first down to the ocean. That evolved into severe jerking and the plane bouncing up and down violently. This shit was strong, flight attendents were thrown to the floor and onto passengers. Beverage carts toppled and shit was flying all over the cabin. It felt like the plane was in the hand of Godzilla and being shaken like a martini. Pilot comes on, sounds intensely stressed, and says we've hit severe turbulence and he needs to get clearance to change our altitude. This shit went on for ten minutes, constant fast drops mixed with the plane bring thrown around like a toy. Some people were in hysterics and a lot were crying. I saw people praying etc.

I thought there was a good chance it was the end of the line. Turbulence never bothered me until I experienced that turbulence on steroids. Have flown since then and it does not worry me, but I never want to have another session like that! The normal stuff is NBD until you get hit with the Godzilla turbulence.
 
I've only been on a plane a few times but I enjoyed the turbulance, it made things more fun.

A few years back was my first time on a plane, the second plane which was a jumbo jet (not the HUGE ones like you see on TV but bigger than the first plane which was a turbo prop dash 8) and coming into Halifax the turbulence was crazy. I can feel that everyone was scared but I thought it was the coolest thing ever, but seeing everyone's faces I was starting to wonder if I'm suppose to be scared right now. I was going to ask "are we crashing?" as a joke. :awe:

A year or so ago went on another trip, this time in Thunder Bay and it was even worse there, particularly the last few minutes of landing. The tires were actually shiny because of how hot they got from that nearly 45 degree landing. I have to give kudos to the pilots for being able to handle landings like that.
 
ImpulsE69 said:
Off topic - but I was actually thinking about queuing it up. Haven't watched it since I was a kid.
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Do it, and remember "Road Warrior" final escape scene was/is probably the best-ever live action sequence filmed and he did it with zero special effects as well, no CGI in '81..
 
I like turbulence. Airframes can handle a LOT. But I've never experienced coffee-on-the-ceiling level turbulence. I can't imagine that being much fun.
 
The only time I was ever worried about turbulence was flying from Singapore into Jarkata. The plane was a 747 and I was near the back. We were bouncing around a lot and I remember thinking if a 747 is being bounced around like this it must be pretty bad.

As you can tell though, I made it.
 
Not really at all anymore. I've been in some pretty small planes this year (2 seaters) and all the shaking ups and downs puts the vast majority of the larger airliners 'turbulence' into perspective.
 
Anytime the plane does something that is unexpected I think "this is it!". I only fly once or twice a year so my chance of being in something bad is very low. Still I would hate to go down in a plane where i had time to think about what was about to happen.
 
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